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Fears that Syria may execute jailed software activist

Bassel Khartabil, known globally for his Wikipedia and Creative Commons work, faces a secret military court shortly. Friends fear for his life.

Syrian software engineer Bassel Khartabil, known worldwide for his Wikipedia and Creative Commons contributions, has been jailed for nearly a year, during which time he was tortured. He faces a secret military court shortly and friends fear he may be executed. (Joi Ito / Flickr)

For his work online, Syrian software engineer Bassel Khartabil was arrested and tortured — and he could be executed in the coming weeks by security forces in the troubled country.

“We knew Bassel was in grave danger from day one of the revolution,” Khartabil’s uncle Oussama Al Rifai told the Star over Skype from Abu Dhabi.

Khartabil will face a military court at an unknown location in Damascus this week or next. The proceedings will be conducted in secret; he will have no right to a lawyer and cannot appeal the verdict, according to Amnesty International.

The 31-year-old Palestinian-Syrian, who went by the name Bassel Safadi online, specialized in open source software, which allows users to learn, change and distribute software freely. This could be regarded as a threat to Syria, a country notorious for strict Internet censorship.

Khartabil is known around the world for his contributions to major Internet projects like Wikipedia and Creative Commons. During his 10-year career Khartabil launched a magazine and his own open source website and taught Syrians Internet technologies.

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He was named one of top global thinkers of 2012, Foreign Policy’stop global thinkers of 2012, along with Barack Obama, Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi and Pakistani schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafazi, “as a testament to the possibilities — and the extraordinary costs — of nonviolent revolution.”

“Bassel was always hungry for knowledge,” said Rifai, who taught his nephew how to use a computer when he was a 13-year-old growing up in Damascus. “He was so determined to spread knowledge.”

But Khartabil’s work online came to halt on March 15, 2012 — the one-year-anniversary of the Syrian uprising — when he became one of Syria’s 25,000 political prisoners, his uncle said.

Two weeks before his planned wedding, Khartabil was detained in a wave of mass arrests in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. His house was stormed, his computer confiscated and then he disappeared. His family received no official explanation regarding any charges or his whereabouts.

They would later learn from a released detainee that Khartabil was being tortured at a military intelligence base in the Kafer Sousa neighbourhood. Reports of rape, beatings, burnings and electrocution at Syrian intelligence bases such as Kafer Sousa are rife, according to Amnesty. “In scores of cases, the torture or other ill-treatment is so severe that victims have died in custody,” said the report.

“We told him he would wind up in jail or as a martyr,” Rifai says, as he fiddles with prayer beads and recalls warning his nephew to leave the country. “But Bassel said ‘I will continue no matter what.’ ”

Shortly before his arrest, Khartabil tweeted: “The people who are in real danger never leave … They are in danger for a reason and for that they don’t leave.”

Internet activists, friends and colleagues started an online campaign to try to free him. “We urge the Syrian government to release the community member, husband-to-be, son to a mother and father, and celebrated international software engineer Bassel Khartabil immediately,” says the campaign’s website.

“I hope that people see that there is no reason for holding him,” she said from Rome. “He’s peaceful and was working openly.”

Over the last few months, online activists intensified their campaign by organizing a “chain-fast” over Twitter. Each person pledged to fast for one day until Khartabil is freed. In September, Amnesty issued a statement urging the Syrian government to free him.

One month later, after spending seven months in Kafer Sousa, Khartabil was transferred to a civilian prison in Adra, a suburb northeast of Damascus. He now has visitation rights, according to his uncle. He and his fiancée signed marriage documents on Jan.10.

Rifai says the campaign and media coverage saved Khartabil’s life. “He was tortured everyday, but then after Foreign Policy’s ranking everything stopped.”

Despite the transfer to a civilian prison, activists and relatives fear the military court will hand down a harsh sentence. Della Ratta worries Khartabil may be executed. “We are all very scared for him,” she said.

Rifai says he has little hope Khartabil will be set free. “His freedom depends on the fall of the regime, which I don’t think is coming soon.”

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